A BBC Radio 4 semi-autobiographical play by BAFTA award-winning writer Trevor Preston, telling the story of Charlie, who suddenly re-discovers the passion and energy of his youth. 'Small Acts of Kindness' was originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 15 March 2011. In the late 1950s Charlie was a violent and uncontrollable entrant to art scho...

Ten short BBC Radio 4 plays from an eclectic mix of writers, including Josie Long, Nick Warburton and Tim Key, exploring one of the most important human emotions. 'Ten Lessons in Love' was originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 25 April 2011. This accumulation of mini-plays encompasses romance, heartbreak and some adult themes; each play o...

A BBC Radio 4 romantic comedy about the separation of Sam (Alex Jennings) and Juliet (Tamsin Greig). 'That's Mine, This is Yours' was originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 4 May 2011. Sam and Juliet are to divorce. We join them as they meet to divide up their possessions in the house they've shared ever since they married. As they discuss...

A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Alexandre Dumas's swashbuckling epic, starring Jamie Glover, Robert Glenister and Timothy Spall. 17th Century France. Dashing young swordsman D'Artagnan heads for Paris, dreaming of serving the King as a member of his elite guard. On arrival, he meets the three musketeers - Athos, Porthos and Aramis - and the four men...

Nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski reflects back on his wild and wondrous days with a circus. It's the Depression Era and Jacob, finding himself parentless and penniless, joins the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. There he meets the freaks, grifters, and misfits that populate this world. He introduces us to Marlena, beautiful star of the...

Featuring: The Moriaty Murder Mystery, King Solomon's Mines, The œ1,000,000 Penny and The Vanishing Room. Anarchic, ground-breaking and hilariously inventive, The Goon Show re-shaped comedy and set new standards in the genre. The mix of brilliant wordplay, mental slapstick and surreal clowning ensures the popularity of Spike Milligan, Peter S...

PART 1-THE PARENTS: Jennifer and Peter Whitelock arrive in Japan to help find their daughter's murderer. Frustrated with the progress of the police investigation, Peter puts his trust in TV producer Norio Ito, who promises to champion their cause on his popular "news and entertainment" show, while Jennifer tries to discover what her daughter's life...

'The past is like a foreign country. Nice to visit, but you really wouldn't want to live there.' In 2003, Rebecca Whitaker died in a road accident. Her husband Mark is still grieving. He receives a battered envelope, posted eight years ago, containing a set of instructions with a simple message: 'You can save her.' As Mark is given the chance to sa...

In 1920s London the Doctor and Rose find themselves caught up in the hunt for a mysterious murderer. But not everyone or everything is what they seem. Secrets lie behind locked doors and inhuman killers roam the streets. Who is the Painted Lady and why is she so interested in the Doctor? How can a cat return from the dead? Can anyone be trusted to...

Peter returns home to poverty in Newcastle, from active service in Northern Ireland. He has been horribly injured, and his relationship with his wife and friends deteriorates. His status as the outsider allows him to see the corruption of everyday existence, but he is unable to salvage any dignity from his situation. Gristle is based on Ernst Tolle...

Jimmy Spud is Newcastle's only trainee angel, determined to solve cosmic mysteries and save his father from the grip of lung cancer.

A BBC Radio 4 drama by Louise Ramsden, based on Seaneen Molloy's blog The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive, her account of learning to live and love with bipolar disorder. Originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 8 May 2009. Facing life as a newly-diagnosed manic depressive, Seaneen fears that Rob has become more nurse than boyfriend, and b...

Perivale, 1983. A column of smoke rises from the blazing ruins of a forgotten, decaying mansion. Perivale, 1883. In the sleepy village of Greenford Parva, Gabriel Chase is by far the most imposing edifice. The villagers shun the grim house, but the owner, the reclusive and controversial naturalist Josiah Samuel Smith, receives occasional visitors....

Jenny Seagrove and Nigel Havers star in this BBC Radio 2 production of Noel Coward's classic tale of forbidden love. Laura Jesson is a happily married woman until a chance encounter in a train station caf‚ draws her to Dr Alec Harvey. Literally bumping into each other brings temptation, danger and guilt into their lives, and a doomed love aff...

The second instalment of Jeeves and Wooster's bally adventures is chock-full of unabridged stories to bring a sparkle to even the dimmest eye. Martin Jarvis is on top form as usual, voicing superbly the many colourful characters, including the hapless and ever-romantic Bingo Little. From money-making schemes involving placing wagers on vicars to po...

Part of the P. G. Wodehouse Blandings series. When a valuable scarab belonging to an American millionaire is absent-mindedly stolen by Lord Emsworth, young writers Ashe Marson and Joan Valentine are tasked with infiltrating Blandings Castle to retrieve it. Meanwhile, vacuous Freddie Threepwood worries that some compromising letters may scupper his...

As well as Jeeves and his master Bertie Wooster, these unabridged stories also feature many regular favourites, including Tuppy Glossop, Bingo Little, Bobbie Wickham, Aunt Dahlia, Aunt Agatha and Sir Roderick Glossop. All voiced masterfully by veteran Wodehouse reader Martin Jarvis.

A political discussion piece, this story sees political canvassers in Ireland discussing the merits of their candidates and the advantages and pitfalls of their positions, including whether or not they are to be paid. Also concerned with allegiances and tensions between nationalists and loyalists, this story from 'Dubliners' is historically interes...

A foolhardy mouse named Mervyn with great faith in his own courage and invincibility, sets off to antagonize the household cat, Pouncetta. His family and friends fear the worst and lament his untimely demise, they may be surprised by the strange turn of events, facilitated in part to a perhaps unduly paranoid feline...

Helen Johns reads some fascinating early writings by Jane Austen from the fictionalised A Collection of Letters. A prolific letter writer herself, in this collection we see how the budding writer is experimenting, and starting to explore the medium as a literary convention.

Our narrator stays on a Mediterranean island much longer than he intended to for a number of reasons. One reason is to prove his mother and his girlfriend wrong, who both say that to decamp to an island for a whole winter to write a novel is melodramatic and rather a clich‚. Most nights, to abate loneliness and pass the time, he talks to the...